Chapter Seven.
A Voyage of Discovery to the Far West Planned and Begun.
Three years passed away, during which period Mackenzie, being busily occupied with his arduous duties as a fur-trader, could not carry out the more noble purposes of discovery on which his heart was set. But a time at length arrived when circumstances permitted him to turn his eyes once more with a set purpose on the unknown wilderness of the West. Seated one fine morning about the beginning of spring, in his wooden residence at Fort Chipewyan, he observed Reuben Guff passing the window with an axe on his shoulder, that worthy, with his son and Swiftarrow, having engaged in the service of the fur-traders at the end of the late expedition. Opening the door, Mackenzie called him in.
“Where are you bound for just now, Reuben?”
“To dinner, monsieur.”
“Reuben,” said Mackenzie, with a peculiar look, “has all your pioneering enthusiasm oozed out at your finger ends?”
“No, monsieur,” replied the man, with a slight smile, “but Lawrence and I have bin thinkin’ of late that as Monsieur Mackenzie seems to have lost heart, we must undertake a v’yage o’ diskivery on our own account!”
“Good. Then you are both ready, doubtless, to begin your discoveries with a canoe journey of some extent on short notice?”
“At once, monsieur, if it please you.”
“Nay, Reuben, not quite so fast as that,” said Mackenzie, with a laugh; “you may have your dinner first. But to-morrow you shall become a genuine pioneer by preceding me towards the far west. You know the position of our most distant settlements on the Peace River?”